


a perfect cynic

by pyrrhlc



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Character Study, Light Angst, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Relationship Study, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 11:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13717230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: Grantaire is a cynic; Enjolras is a believer. This is an established fact. To Grantaire, it is just how the world works, and should work: circumstances never change for a cynic.He isn’t expecting Enjolras to share his lack of optimism, even briefly.





	a perfect cynic

Sometimes, Grantaire forgets to see the differences between Enjolras and himself.

It’s a dangerous game to play. He shouldn’t engage in this kind of behaviour, but he does it anyway. What is one more piece of recklessness to him, regardless? He has been gambling his life away for years now, gambling away his fortune (rapidly decreasing) on absinthe and unhurried words, women and more wine besides. It doesn’t matter – _he_ doesn’t matter. They’ll all be dead by the end of this, anyway. Everything comes back to what it was. It is a simple equation, one word in fact: relativity.

Their time is relative. His friends and his friendships are all just relative. Grantaire’s wine-soaked corpse won’t mean a thing to the men of the future – and why should it? He’s just a man. A corpse is just a corpse.

So perhaps it doesn’t matter – shouldn’t matter – when he starts to see the cynic in Enjolras and the revolutionary in himself. It should not surprise him, nor please him. But the fact remains that Grantaire has a bloodthirsty sense of justice, and Enjolras—

Enjolras believes in the revolution, but there are moments where it is clear that he struggles to believe in little else – like himself, for example.

Grantaire sees this of himself and Enjolras only once, but it happens like this, just as he is leaving the Café Musain: he was supposed to leave with Bossuet, but now, Bossuet is nowhere to be found. It doesn’t matter. He’s just about to leave for his rooms when he hears Enjolras behind him say, “Grantaire?”

Grantaire turns to him with a smile; Enjolras looks confused, as he is warrant to look when standing in the presence of Grantaire, but something about his stance – _listless_ is, perhaps, the word Grantaire would use – is different somehow. In this, Enjolras does not appear restless for rebellion, or even some small source of public rage. He just looks… tired.

“Will you walk with me?”

Grantaire, never one to disobey a god, bows his head and falls into step beside Enjolras – up close, his copper skin appears paler than usual and his eyes, usually so resistant to fatigue, are beaten in with a kind of exhaustion that Grantaire has come to associate with the overconsumption of spirits. Which is obviously incorrect, because Enjolras doesn’t drink, and yet—

Grantaire is sober, in this moment. It’s an unusual position to be holding this late at night, after a meeting, but in the presence of Apollo he has found his appetite for absinthe greatly diminished. It’s pleasant, to be able to behold the sky and not fall over. But the clarity of thought that comes with it – that is something else entirely.

For a moment, Grantaire thinks he can understand Enjolras’ lust for revolution – he never drinks, and so has never known what it is like to be blissfully incoherent, fuzzy, beyond all comprehension. If Grantaire had never known alcohol, perhaps he would have longed for revolution too. As it stands, he doesn’t feel that same thrill for progress as Enjolras does. His own vices are satisfied enough by the alcohol, and it’s because of this same urge that he’s never felt much of a need to take things further. It’s just how things are – he’ll gladly drink himself into a stupor if it means not feeling the indignity of whatever Enjolras feels on a daily basis – indignation, anger, righteousness on an alarming scale. Grantaire has never had time for any of it.

But this time, his head is clear. Enjolras’, clearly, is not.

He is not drunk – he is far too puritan for that, Grantaire thinks, even despite the fact that it makes him look even more childish than he already does – but his mind is heavy with things that he cannot put into a speech, or inject into an argument, and this fact alone is almost as worrying as his apparent fatigue or Grantaire’s sobriety. Grantaire taps him gently on the shoulder.

“Are you well?”

Enjolras stops in his tracks and looks at him, and his harsh blue eyes are fretful without the usual anger residing underneath. It seems like a violation of a kind, to look at Enjolras and see something that isn’t fire, but Enjolras seems happy to reveal himself in this way, so Grantaire tries his best not to act unnerved when he says, “I am tired, Grantaire. I do not wish for our revolution to fail. I don’t want our friends to die for nothing, or because of my own callousness.”

The word _failure_ should never cross Enjolras’ lips. To do so would be a violation of history – to have him say it in front of _Grantaire_ is just plain ridiculous. Grantaire repeats the line twice in his head before replying – and his reply is just as uncharacteristic as Enjolras’ is wrong.

“You are not callous,” he says, because that, surely, is the point to which he must reply first – Apollo, surely, cannot possibly have such a low opinion of himself – “You are courageous, and a good man. You are doing what you think is right. That is not callousness – it is virtue.”

Enjolras smiles inwardly and continues walking, Grantaire by his side. It feels odd, to talk with Enjolras and not be berated, but then, it is also odd to fill the boots of a believer, and to dispel the doubts of a man he has reason enough to believe is made of marble. The world is upside down – that, at least, Grantaire can accept with dignity and some grace.

“You think me virtuous?”

“You think me insufferable,” Grantaire replies automatically, “Of course I think you virtuous.”

Enjolras’ face crumples a little at that. It is coming to Grantaire’s attention that they are no longer heading in the direction of either his nor Enjolras’ rooms, but the Seine, winding and serene, a black snake writhing in the dark of the town. He can hear the rush of water even at this distance.

“I do not think you insufferable,” Enjolras says quietly, as the water continues to burble – it is quiet enough that Grantaire could choose not to hear it if he wanted to, which is probably the point, but he doesn’t pursue the gesture. “You infuriate me, but you are – I still think of you as a friend, Grantaire. You will tell me you think me wrong, even if others deny it. I value your honesty but not your cynicism.”

“Ah,” Grantaire says, holding up his hands, “But is it you who believes yourself to be callous, not I. And it is you who worries about failure, not myself.” He gives Enjolras an indulgent smile that Enjolras does not return. “Are you telling me you have your reservations, now, about dying in a blaze of glory? I would’ve thought my dear Apollo to have more courage than that!”

Opposite, the Seine churns; Enjolras steps forward into the dark and leans his elbows against the railings, his red jacket glinting in the light that echoes out across the river, thrown there by the huddled masses. “I have courage,” he says in a low voice, wholly ignorant of the way his returning fierceness appears to stir some deeper feeling behind Grantaire’s sternum, “But not enough to lead my friends to a pointless death. I would gladly die for the revolution – if it comes to it, I will do exactly that – but I cannot expect the same of others when our battle hinges on so much uncertainty.” He turns and looks at Grantaire, still standing several metres from the river, and adds, “Even you have promised yourself to the barricades, when you care nothing for what we fight. It makes no sense. I do not wish to fail any of you, but this—”

Very quietly, Grantaire says, “I believe in what you speak, but not in its success. It does not have to end in death if you do not wish it.”

“I wish for progress.”

“Then perhaps progress is what you will get.”

Enjolras turns to him with a smile on his face. “Perhaps,” he quotes mockingly, one eyebrow raised. His smile is doing strange things to Grantaire’s stomach. “There is the cynic, returned. If we are not careful, you shall turn one into two. I suppose death can make cynics of us all.”

“Ay, that is true,” Grantaire replies, but he is still wary of the expression on Enjolras’ face, flickering between certainty and uncertainty, truth and untruth, “But you were not born to be a cynic. It is your job to liberate the people.”

Grantaire leans against the railing; Enjolras turns his head to gaze at him with a sly smile. “Is that so?”

“You know it to be so, dear Apollo.”

Enjolras sighs and shakes his head. “You are unusually eloquent tonight, Grantaire.”

“Indeed, I am as sober as can be.” He shakes his head when Enjolras laughs. “What, then? Is that such a foreign concept to you?”

“You have never been sober as long as I have known you,” Enjolras replies. His expression is serious, but Grantaire thinks he can see him smiling somewhere beneath the facade. It’s the laugh that’s broken it. In their meetings, he cannot ever recall Enjolras laughing. The ghost of it rings in his ears. It is not an unpleasant sound.

Enjolras leans his elbows against the railings and rests his head in his cupped hands. His atrocious cravat is tangled in the nape of his neck, and the image of him there, superimposed against a backdrop of light, with all France’s poverty hidden by the darkness, is almost more than Grantaire’s poor, sober heart can bear. He likes Enjolras best when he’s not trying to save the world, he decides. He wonders when this side of the man will appear again. Probably never, knowing his luck. But the gods are nice to look at, and they are nice to dream about, so Grantaire will have to content himself with seeing the more human aspect of Enjolras only once, and leave it at that. It’s just how things go, in the world and word of the cynic.

“I should know you better, Grantaire,” Enjolras says at last into the silence, and for a moment Grantaire is certain that he has misheard him, that Enjolras is making a different claim to a different man, when Enjolras adds, “There is a wit beneath the absinthe I never much noticed. You keep yourself too hidden from the world – and from I. We could make a revolutionary of you yet.”

Enjolras sounds bafflingly hopeful, so Grantaire decides to try and intercede so as to let him down gently. He is bound to disappoint – Enjolras himself has said it often enough, so why give him such a chance now?

“I am cynical,” Grantaire says, ignoring the wodge of darkness that sits in his chest and feels so much like guilt, “I will always be cynical. You will always be revolutionary. We snap back into our right places eventually, of that I have no doubt. I will return to my absinthe, and you will return to your people. I am not meant to save as you are.”

“You could.”

“I assure you, I am as dammed as everyone else on this miserable Earth,” Grantaire says. Suddenly, he finds himself craving alcohol once more. Apollo is not enough. “You will succeed or not succeed. But your friends are with you. Of this, for once, I have no doubt.”

Enjolras’ face is not quite a smile. “You are a cynic who believes in friendship,” he observes, “What a contradiction that leaves in your character.”

Grantaire bows his head. “My friends are the best of me,” he admits. Then, daringly, adds, “They are the best of you also.”

“I do not doubt it.”

“Then we agree on something,” says Grantaire triumphantly, “The cynic, and the man who never gives in. I can hardly believe it.”

Enjolras is facing the river again, and his face is sad beyond words. “Nor I,” he murmurs. “And yet I still believe you could perform revolution if you so chose. But here we are.”

Here they were. It would not happen again, but Grantaire would continuously consider it, analyse it, pick apart the threads of their conversation. The day he became, however briefly, someone one who believed in hope, and the day Enjolras came to reflect upon what must surely end in bloodshed. It did not seem fair that both could be right. Yet nevertheless, bloodshed and hope would come. And when it did, Grantaire would be there to fight alongside it.

He would fight alongside Enjolras, too, but it would not be realised until sometime later, when the bodies were carted away, and when the fighting was done and the dead left for dead, that such a man would be discovered. That small slice of hope – that slice of revolutionary hiding within a cynic and the changes he might have made to a world not yet ready for something hopeful – would come later, but they would not be venerated. Not until the next life, and the next chance.

Not until the next world, and the revolution it would bring with it. In this, there would always be a second chance for the perfect cynic.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at [pyrrhlc](https://pyrrhlc.tumblr.com)!


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